The Most Dangerous Muse

By Eliza Strickland

研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，一些帕金森癥患者會變身為藝術(shù)家，他們表現(xiàn)在藝術(shù)創(chuàng)作中的才能令人吃驚，而之前多數(shù)人都很少接觸藝術(shù)。醫(yī)學(xué)專家認(rèn)為，與多巴胺相關(guān)的帕金森癥治療用藥在其中起了關(guān)鍵作用，它可以將某些患者潛在的藝術(shù)創(chuàng)作天分激活。一些帕金森癥患者很享受投身于藝術(shù)創(chuàng)作的生活，在藝術(shù)創(chuàng)作中，他們更加關(guān)注內(nèi)心生活和外部世界，由此開啟了人生幸福的新篇章。

Tsipi Shaish, a 59-year-old grandmother, knows exactly when she became an artist: when she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2006.1. be diagnosed with： 被診斷出；Parkinson’s disease： 帕金森癥（PD），又名震顫麻痹，是一種影響患者活動能力的中樞神經(jīng)系統(tǒng)慢性疾病，多發(fā)生于中老年人群，為最常見的神經(jīng)退行性疾病之一。Before her trembling hands brought her to a neurologist,2. trembling： 顫抖的，哆嗦的；neurologist： 神經(jīng)科醫(yī)生。she had lived “a routine life,” she says. She worked a boring job at an insurance company for 25 years and focused on raising her two kids. She never took art lessons, and beyond the occasional museum visit,3. beyond： 除了；occasional： 偶爾的。never gave any thought to art. Now she talks proudly of her own paintings that have hung in Paris and New York City galleries4. gallery： 美術(shù)館，畫廊。.

“I go to the canvas because I feel curious, I feel an uncontrollable urge,”5. canvas： 畫布；uncontrollable： 無法控制的；urge： 強(qiáng)烈的欲望。she says. She chooses materials and paint colors in a haze of intuition, letting her hands apply strong swathes of color to create vivid abstracts.6. 直覺讓她選擇了畫布和顏料，用自己的雙手將大量濃烈色彩融合成生動的抽象畫。a haze of： 一陣；intuition： 直覺；swathes of： 大量（某物）；vivid： 生動的； abstract： 抽象事物?！癐f you ask me, ‘Why did you do this and not that?’ I wouldn’t be able to answer, because I don’t know it rationally7. rationally： 理性地，合理地。,” Shaish says.Her creative impulses are an integral part of a new version of herself that only came into being after her diagnosis.8. 她的創(chuàng)作沖動使她展現(xiàn)出全新的自我，而這種沖動是在她確診患病以后才出現(xiàn)的。impulse：沖動；integral： 構(gòu)成整體所必需的；come into being： 形成，出現(xiàn)。“I’m more alive than I was 10 years ago,” she says.

Shaish is part of a subset of people with Parkinson’s disease who experience an urgent flowering of creativity even as their brain cells die and their bodies decline due to the neurodegenerative disease.9.Shaish和其他一些帕金森癥患者一樣，盡管腦細(xì)胞開始死亡，身體由于神經(jīng)退行性疾病每況愈下，但他們正經(jīng)歷著一場強(qiáng)烈的創(chuàng)作高潮。a subset of： 一部分；flowering： 高潮，盛期；decline： 衰退；due to： 由于，歸因于；neurodegenerative： 神經(jīng)變性的。Patients with no prior history of artistic proclivities begin to draw, paint, sculpt, and write poetry.10. prior： 先前的，之前的；proclivity： 傾向，癖性；sculpt： 雕刻。In recent years case studies have shown the brains of the Parkinson’s patients are being reshaped by their disease and medications.11. reshape： 重塑，改造；medication： 藥物治療。Like most Parkinson’s patients, Shaish takes drugs that rebalance the brain’s dopamine system, involved in movement and motivation.12. rebalance： 調(diào)整；dopamine： 多巴胺，一種腦內(nèi)分泌物，屬于神經(jīng)遞質(zhì)，可影響一個人的情緒； motivation： 積極性，興趣。There is a light side and a dark side to these neural changes. While some patients produce inspirational art, others get locked in destructive addictions.13. inspirational： 帶有靈感的；destructive： 毀滅性的；addiction： 成癮。But drugs aren’t the only explanation.

Cindy DeLuz of northern California had worked as an esthetician before her diagnosis and had no history of making art;when she felt the sudden urge to paint, she had to drive to a fiveand-dime store to buy a watercolor set.14. esthetician： 美學(xué)家；five-and-dime store： 廉價品商店；watercolor： 水彩，水彩顏料。Within weeks she was painting obsessively, sometimes for 48 hours at a stretch.15. obsessively： 著迷地；at a stretch： 一口氣兒，連續(xù)不歇?！癕y husband finally put a lock on the art room door,” she remembers with a laugh.

Such levels of compulsion ring alarm bells for clinicians who take care of Parkinson’s patients.16. compulsion： （尤指難以克制的）強(qiáng)烈欲望，沖動；clinician： 臨床醫(yī)生。In the early 2000s, doctors realized that a small number of their patients responded to the dopamine-related medications by compulsively seeking rewards, often in ways that screwed up their lives.17. 21世紀(jì)初期，醫(yī)生意識到，一小部分患者服用與多巴胺相關(guān)的藥物后會產(chǎn)生強(qiáng)烈的追求回報的沖動，這經(jīng)常會毀掉他們的生活。screw up： 毀壞，搞砸。Some patients lost their savings through compulsive gambling,others became hypersexual18. hypersexual： 縱欲過度的。and destroyed their marriages, and some just wanted more and more of their medication. By 2005 researchers had classified these behaviors as dopamine dysregulation syndrome19. dopamine dysregulation syndrome： 多巴胺失調(diào)綜合癥。.

Anjan Chatterjee, chair of neurology at Pennsylvania Hospital, has seen cases of Parkinson’s patients who have engaged in these disruptive behaviors, and has also studied a patient who painted obsessively. He believes the two phenomena20. phenomena： 現(xiàn)象，phenomenon的復(fù)數(shù)形式。are linked. “There may be something in this constellation of21. a constellation of sth.： 一群相似的事物（或人）。symptoms where people have a certain amount of impulsiveness and risk taking behavior that gets expressed through art,”Chatterjee says. He says his artistic patient would get up at four in the morning to paint. “Our patient would pick themes and keep working them and working them,” he says. “There was a ritualistic component.”22. ritualistic： 固定的，慣例的；component：組成部分。

Chatterjee notes that creativity is often conceived23. conceive： 以為，認(rèn)為。as a four-stage process. In the first preparatory step the artist acquires skills and gathers material; in the second “incubation” stage ideas swirl around the subconscious brain; third comes that wonderful moment of illumination where disconnected thoughts meld together in an exciting new way.24.在第一步的準(zhǔn)備階段，畫家首先獲得技能，收集材料；在第二步的“醞釀”階段，各種想法在大腦潛意識中來回涌動；第三階段迎來美妙的啟發(fā)時刻，零散的想法以一種令人興奮的全新方式融合到一起。preparatory： 準(zhǔn)備的；acquire： 取得；incubation： 醞釀；swirl： 打旋；subconscious： 潛在意識的；illumination： 啟發(fā)；disconnected：分散的，不連貫的。Finally, in the fourth stage, the artist makes a conscious and deliberate25. deliberate： 深思熟慮的。effort and gets the work done.

Cindy DeLuz作品

Cindy DeLuz

People living with Parkinson’s would no doubt say that getting a neurodegenerative disease is not a great way to summon26. summon： 召集。the muse. But they are not questioning the muse, only following her.

When she picks up her brush, Shaish says, she doesn’t know where she’s going. She recounts27. recount： 敘述。a winter’s night in 2007. One year after her Parkinson’s diagnosis, her husband was diagnosed with cancer, and had to stay in the hospital for rounds of chemotherapy.28. round： 周期；chemotherapy： 化療。On her husband’s first night in the hospital, Shaish came home to a dark and empty house—her kids were grown and gone, so she was alone. She took up a big blank canvas and started reaching for the paints. She mixed dark colors: blacks,browns, purples, greens. She painted without a plan or an image in her head. “But when I finished and I sat down and looked at the painting, I knew exactly what it meant to me,” she says.

Shaish says the painting is like a Tarot card29. Tarot card： 塔羅牌，是西方古老的占卜工具。that her brain dealt her.“It’s as if my subconscious created this card for me and gave me strength and inspiration, told me how to cope, how to look at my life.” Shaish still struggles with her disease. She takes medications four times a day, and deals with tremors and muscles that sometimes go stiff and rigid.30. tremor： 震顫，顫動；stiff： 僵硬的，活動時疼痛的；rigid： 僵硬的。In the morning, she has trouble getting moving. Still, Shaish sees her condition as a gift. “It has made me attentive31. attentive： 留心的，注意的。to my intuition,” she says. “I believe we all have the answers within us. If you really listen to yourself, if you pick up the right things, then you know the answers.”